It’s Friday afternoon, it must be time for a roundup
You may be wondering why I do these on Friday afternoons. You see – my employer does something called Summer Hours between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Employees who choose to take advantage of the program work an extra hour Monday through Thursday and go home at noon on Friday.
I do not choose to take advantage of Summer Hours, so the place is quiet on Friday afternoons. I have time to write a little on break.
Work
I had a good conversation about career paths and discovery and discernment with my boss this week. This is probably setting off alarm bells in most of your minds, but we have a really good rapport (we’ve worked together since about 1996) and I fully trust her to be discrete. There are benefits to both sides in being open and honest with your boss, and we plan to make good use of them. I can’t say more here. I’m glad that it went well.
I had a medium-sized project go live today. It was a bumpy installation – caused mainly by a consultant who doesn’t know our setup and change management package. It’s not his fault – everybody has a hard time the first time. Once we got the issues worked out all is running correctly. I have another one going live soon, and a third larger project going live at the end of the month (with pieces continuing to be worked on into September).
I am getting a brand-new laptop at some point in the next few weeks. They’re here, but I’m a low priority replacement (others have broken systems or are new employees working on “loaner” PCs).
Work has been generally busy. In the last 2 weeks I’ve had an overwhelming number of problems, issues, and small requests. It’s like everybody decided to hold them until the last week of July and then dump them all on me at once. I think I’m through most of them, but the workload did increase for no apparent reason temporarily.
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This weekend is a bit active. My parents are coming over on Saturday evening and we are headed out to see a Trenton Thunder baseball game. The Thunder are the AA affiliates of the NY Yankees and have been playing in Trenton since 1994. Our seats are behind the 1st base side dugout and I think they’re the 2nd row behind the dugout (or maybe the first row).
Then on Sunday I head up to Camp Johnsonburg for check-in for the last week of regular camp. I’m going to be in charge of medical form paperwork this week due to my friend Jill’s vacation – she is usually the person doing the job. It’s looking to be a bit warm. I think there are lots of kids from my church going this week, but I’m so far away from the actual check-in tables that I probably won’t see them. This isn’t my last visit for a long time – I’m also planning to attend the Youth Worker Training on September 7, and I’ll be chaperone when my church’s Sr. Highs attend the camp Sr. High Retreat in November.
Church
We’ve finally got the Welcome and Outreach Task Force started. We have 8 members with 2 outstanding invitations. For the month of August, we’re doing optional reading assignments on our topic. I’m reading The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church by Reggie McNeal. In September we’ll get everybody together face to face and really get started.
The Youth Director came all the way to Bristol for lunch earlier this week. We talked about my career search and the upcoming Confirmation Class. He had lots of good input on the career discussion. For the Confirmation Class, he’s asking how he can get me involved without overbooking my time. At this point it looks like I will end up being the Cat-Herder for the group of mentors assigned to the confirmands. That’s an easy assignment – a bit of work up front but after that just keeping people on schedule and watching for problems. I’m also probably going to teach a few lessons – probably polity and beyond that we’ll see. I really want to be involved in this process because the youth that I know who are the right age are really great!
All other areas of my life are fine at the moment.
Have a good weekend!
Quick Question: Prophet vs. Malcontent
Work is busy. I don’t have enough time to cover this fully, but here’s a question that’s been in my mind.
My pastor has been preaching on the prophets. His last sermon was titled “People Who Say No”. He talked about the difference between a prophet who says what the people in power want to hear (“a for-profit prophet”) and the prophet who is truly speaking for God. As we know, back in Old Testament times the prophets were often “assigned” to the earthly King.
Today, we hear a lot of people who claim to speak God’s will. Some of the messages resonate with me, and others chafe. Each of us has different reactions to these modern-day prophets.
On the other side, there are malcontents (or false prophets). There are people who claim to know God’s will but in reality probably don’t. They make their statements with the same self-assurance as the prophet.
The one similarity between the prophet and the malcontent is that they are railing against what is, desiring or demanding what should be (and isn’t).
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Obviously we’re going to assume that the person saying the same things as us are prophets while those saying the opposites are just malcontents (or worse – misguided or destructive). Maybe there is a part of us that wants to change and which accepts the opposite of our beliefs as truth – making the speaker a prophet.
So how can you tell?
Prophet or malcontent. How do you know?
The comments are open.
Another Roundup
I’d like to apologize to my readers for the lack of deeply thoughtful articles of late. Life and work are a bit busy at the moment and I only have time for these roundups.
Work
I’m on the old laptop, reloaded from scratch. I’ve been told today that I’m getting a new one in the next few weeks. Given that this one was nearly top of the line when we bought it in 2000 or 2001 – it’s time. Company culture issues aren’t touching me as much as they had been a while back. One of the “problem children” has resigned and another in a different state has been told that her job is moving to my location by spring and her department reorganized. Given that and a few other things I can’t mention here it’s unlikely that she’ll be here by then. It’s unfortunate when people lose their jobs, but in some cases it’s necessary – anybody who consistently and willfully provides negative productivity (not only are they not productive, they make others less productive) needs to go.
Church
I had a good meeting with with the Youth and Young Adult council this week. We’re getting ready for the new year. We talked a lot about the philosophy of how we lead/schedule the group and some possible changes. The one thing that was a common thread was consistency – that each weekly meeting follow the same pattern and that we choose simple and meaningful as opposed to trying to do a major production each week. This follows the trend in Youth Ministry nationally to move away from the “let’s bring in new converts” blockbuster events of the 80’s and 90’s and for most the over-30 crowd in the council represents a step back to what they experienced as a youth. We’re also talking about changing the names of the groups. Right now they are CHAOS (Christians Hanging Around On Sunday) for the Senior Highs and WILDLIFE (which is an acronym nobody can remember off the top of their heads) for the Junior Highs. The youth director wants to de-emphasize the chaotic aspects of the names and I agree. We’re going to see what the youth want early this fall.
The youth director also asked me if I wanted to help lead the Confirmation Class. This year is the first year doing the class for 9th grade youth (it had been 8th grade, and last year there was no class due to the switch). I’m honored to be asked, a little uncertain about my ability and the strength of my faith being sufficient, and probably nearly overbooked already. The Welcome and Outreach Task Force is about to get started, I’ll still be working with the Senior Highs weekly and attending the YAYA council once a month, and the confirmation class is every other week for 8 months plus 3 weekend retreats (one just overnight). I’ve asked the youth director to lay out time expectations, and perhaps I can be a guest speaker on topics that I know well (polity would be one, and I’m sure that there are a few others).
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The Lawrenceville church and a Princeton church (I think it’s Nassau Presbyterian) are putting together a new young adult event called Theology On Tap. It’s the 2nd Thursday of each month (starting September) in the Yankee Doodle Tap Room of the Nassau Inn in Princeton at 8pm. The idea is for 20’s/30’s somethings to get together and share a drink (alcohol optional), fellowship, and talk about theology. You can find more information HERE, or in the Theolodoodle group on Facebook. I barely qualify by age, but it’s intriguing enough to me that I’ll probably attend at least the first session.
The youth director also told me a freaky coincidence story. He was at Triennium 2 weeks ago, sitting with a woman minister friend of his. She was working on a sermon. On the table she had laid out a Bible, some books, a few printed e-mails, and one printed blog post. My director asked, “Can I look at that?” and picked up the blog post. You’ve probably guessed by now – it was one of mine (either from here or a comment elsewhere). He started laughing and when she asked why he explained: “This is one of my adult advisors.” Since Triennium was attended by youth from all over the world, he claims that I’m now internationally famous! Somehow I doubt that, but I’m glad that folks are finding worth in my ramblings.
Life
All is well, but we’re so busy with other people’s events (family, camp, church) that we’re neglecting work around the house. The outdoor trim needs to be painted, the garden needs weeding badly, and the driveway needs to be sealed. We need to decide whether or not to pay someone to do some of these things (we can afford to) or to stop our commitments and just get it done.
We also need to be sure that we get some downtime.
Friday Roundup
For reasons that will be clear below, I’ve been quiet this week. Here’s a roundup.
Work
The big event this week happened on Wednesday. My work laptop (which I’ve had since 2001) caught a virus mid-morning. It appears that this virus’s purpose in life was to download other viruses, spyware, trojans, pop-ups, and to take over the box so completely that the machine was unusuable. I finally had to resort to contacting our Desktop Support folks (I prefer to fix my own problems most of the time) and we agreed that there was no point in saving the box. The hard drive was wiped and is being reloaded from scratch. I have a loaner PC for a few days while they complete the reload, and then I’ll have to spend time getting the reloaded PC back to the way I like it.
I’m an IT person. For us, the loss of a PC or changing PCs is a very emotional thing. We spend at least 8 hours a day working on the PC. To us, the PC is a lot like home – we install applications that make life easier, we change the background, we have our lists of bookmarked websites, etc. Losing the PC to a virus or hard-drive crash is like your house burning down. Moving onto a loaner PC is like staying in a hotel – you can’t really do much to it and it doesn’t feel quite like home. The one exception to this rule is a better PC. That’s like selling your 1500 sq. foot house and moving into a 2400 sq. foot house. It’s an upgrade!
I may also get upgraded in the near term – I’m waiting to hear.
Also happening at work this week – the division that I support got a new top guy. He is something we haven’t had for many years – knowledgeable about the business, makes good decisions, and is a friendly person who is easy to work with. We haven’t had that combination since about 1998. This bodes well for the business. If he were able to get the culture changed (which includes people outside of his control – so I don’t think it’s likely) I might consider staying.
Camp
I’m headed back to camp for check-in this coming Sunday. I’m looking forward to it, as I always do.
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Church
Our new Associate Pastor ran the service last weekend alone – our senior pastor is on vacation. She did a great job. I wonder if anybody else saw her take a deep breath just before she stood up to speak the first time.
Another amazing thing. An “older” woman (older than my parents) had some sort of back issue. When I started attending last year, she was essentially permanently bent over at a 90 degree angle using a walker with wheels. Then she disappeared for a while, and when she showed up at church she was standing straight! This past week she was the musical soloist, and at her age she still has a very strong and true voice. It’s good to see her get back to something else that she had lost. Very inspirational!
I’m a little worried about the youth group. I didn’t go on the Mission Trip a few weeks ago. I’m sensing that the group is at least temporarily breaking into two groups – those who went on the trip and those who didn’t. After the fund raiser for the trip at the beginning of June, the youth director stopped inviting people (students and advisors) who weren’t going on the trip (reasonable – the meetings were about the trip). I spoke with the adults and youth who went on the trip and I felt a fairly universal vibe from the youth – if you didn’t go on the trip you let them down. I would have hoped that the folks who stayed home (including some of the students) would have been formed into the “Pit Crew” or “Support Team” or even “Prayer Team” supporting those who made the trip. On the up side, I seem to have been active and supportive enough that I’ve been included in the group that plans things for all 3 groups (Jr. High, Sr. High, Young Adult) and we’re meeting next week.
Home
Wife is good. House is good. Cats are good. We need to paint a few things around the house, and we need to get the fireplace chimney fixed/replaced. Otherwise all is well. I’m most of the way through the new Harry Potter (no comments with spoilers, please).
That’s the Friday roundup. Have a nice weekend!
What’s Going On? Redux
It’s been a while since my last post, so I’ll give you another wrap-up.
This past Monday at work I experienced what might be a last-straw event. As last-straw events tend to be, this was a little thing that pointed out a pattern that I had seen before. The short version – I was helping a co-worker and a Vice-President work through an issue. The Vice-President said some rude things and cut off discussion with an “I make the decisions, I don’t have to listen to ideas I don’t like” attitude. I responded by starting to walk away, and then returned to finish the discussion when drawn back by my co-worker. I was upset and talked to my direct supervisor about the situation. I was even more hurt later during a conversation with my co-worker. She stated rather vehemently that she didn’t want to get involved because you can’t take on a Vice-President and it would only end up hurting both of us. I found this ironic because I have fairly recently gone WAY out of my way to help this co-worker. I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to work in an environment where power and position bring the privilege of behaving badly towards lower-level people. I also expect myself and others to speak truth rather than avoiding conflict. I really don’t think I fit in here anymore.
A confession: My birthday is coming up rapidly. This will be a year ending in “9”. I kinda wish that nobody would notice this year. (THis is NOT a veiled attempt to drag birthday wishes out of my readers – it’s an emotional statement.)
Last Sunday I went back to camp to help out with check-in again. As it turns out this was a good idea; there were about 230 kids to check in – nearly every unit between just short of capacity and just over capacity. We ended up dividing the medical form job that I learned the previous week between three people and were able to hang on and keep up. I was only there for a few hours – I went to church back at home first and then drove to camp. I didn’t stay for dinner – it was 94 in the shade and all those bodies in the very full dining hall would be … ripe. Camp must really mean something to me to get me to drive 3 hours round-trip to spend 4-5 hours working.
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I was scheduled to fly again tomorrow but the club canceled the flight – the plane I had booked needed a repair. I just looked and another plane is scheduled to come out of maintenance just when I need it, so I don’t think I’ll chance scheduling that one. I probably won’t get into the air this weekend, but that’s OK. I have family stuff to do Sunday afternoon so Saturday I really need to spend the day on chores.
Job discernment continues. I’m reading Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
That’s the roundup. Lots going on in my head, but most people in my life wouldn’t notice. The important people in my life do.
What’s going on, Mark?
Just an update to say “I’m still here” and let you all know what’s going on.
I had a great time at camp last weekend. The weather was perfect (low to mid 70’s, dry, blue sky with fluffy clouds) as Carolyn and I helped check in 12 units full of kids. That’s a light week for Camp Johnsonburg, undoubtedly due to the holiday. I was trained to do the medical form coordinator’s job. This is a relatively new job for check-in. Jill, a friend and fellow former camp alumni, made it her purpose in life last summer to organize the medical form process. This has resulted in a significant reduction in chaos and an increase in making sure that medical information (particularly received prescriptions) is right and that the campers are safe. She is going to be away one Sunday in August so I’ve been trained to cover that week. I’m also going to write up the procedure for the camp because right now it’s all in Jill’s head. I might go up to camp immediately after church this Sunday – they’re bringing in 20 units next week and they’ll really need the help.
I’m working every day this week except Wednesday – no long weekends when Independence Day falls on a Wednesday. I might get out a few hours early today if management is willing.
I’m undergoing a career questioning process. My job is frankly not challenging right now and there are other reasons that it is getting increasingly uncomfortable (very few having to do with me or politics – it’s more of a “do I want to be here?” issue). I’m wondering whether or not it’s time for a career change rather than a job change.
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At one point about a month ago I thought that the ministry might be a career for me, but I’ve since decided against it. I think it was a fit of overenthusiasm for church-related things in general due to lots of things at happening with me and church. In talking with others about this idea, the reaction has ranged from shock/surprise to “Are you sure?” That’s not really a rousing sign that I should be considering such a career. I really don’t think I have the right personality as an introverted technical thinker who happens to care deeply about people. I’m really a behind-the-scenes kind of person.
So now I’m trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. This might be a mid-life crisis (if you take my life expectancy at birth and divide by 2, you get something less than my age), or it might just be the start of a 2nd career. Or maybe I’ll determine that I’m really supposed to be doing what I’m doing now. I might even be at the right company. Who knows. What I do know is that when I work really hard at camp or at church it doesn’t feel like work. That might be “a change is as good as a rest” or it might be my real vocation peeking out. We’ll have to see.
And that’s the roundup for today.
Corporate Skills for Church Leaders
Since getting re-involved in the church, I’m often frustrated at the general pace and tenor of church work. (This is particularly true in our national conflicts, but I’m thinking primarily of local issues here.) Everything is done VERY slowly, and there are far too many unnecessary interpersonal conflicts (conflict being a broad term encompassing everything from annoyance to lack of communication). In the corporate world, the company would have been restructured and had its culture adjusted long ago.
It’s not even the case that the issues stem from differences between Christian values and capitalist corporate values. Most of church disagreements are quite similar to corporate disagreements: resistance to change, people having to have their input on a change, people just generally behaving badly, etc.
Some examples: I’ve been involved in committee meetings where one person is allowed to dominate the discussion and consume all available time. I’ve been involved in groups that forget important people (stakeholders) and push ahead with the obvious “right thing to do” without recognizing the opposition that is waiting. We’ve all heard from a pew-sitter or even officer or leader who is upset that they were left out of a decision that “obviously” should have included them. These aren’t even examples of malicious interference – that is even worse.
So here is my proposal – ALL church officers (deacons, elders, trustees, and clergy) and other leaders (non-ordained staff, committee leaders, etc) should have training in the following areas:
- Communications
- Conflict Management
- Project Management
- Change Management
When it comes to officers, the training need only be done once per term (or once per person letting the officer determine whether or not they need the training again). For committee chairs and staff members, it should be done once per person.
Communications
A typical corporate Communications class consists of training in the following areas: communications goals, communications styles, bridging communications between people of different styles, roles and responsibilities within communications, active listening, non-verbal skills, openness, cultural issues, and rudimentary conflict skills. In the corporate world this tends to be a 3-day 8-hour per day class.
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Conflict Management
A typical corporate Conflict Management class consists of training in the following areas: defining conflict, underlying causes, stages of conflict, conflict in teams, diffusing anger (and passive aggressive behavior), opening dialogue, conflict resolution (including compromise), and establishing a collaborative environment. In the corporate world this tends to be a 2-3 day 8-hour per day class.
Project Management
A typical corporate Project Management class consists of training in the following areas: stages of a project, objectives, goals, requirements, deliverables, estimating, managing workload and resources, scheduling, evaluating risk, control of the project as it progresses, managing progress, project completion and closure, and rudimentary change management skills. In the corporate world this tends to be a 4 day 8-hour per day class.
Change Management
A typical corporate Change Management class consists of training in the following areas: determining the need for change, identifying and involving stakeholders, intellectual and emotional reactions to change, overcoming resistance to change, moving from fear to commitment to change, the importance of a change champion and leadership support for change, the importance of communications during change, change completion, recovery and rebounding. In the corporate world this tends to be a 2 day 8-hour per day class.
Let me be clear – I’m NOT advocating that each officer be run thorough 12 days (and about $12,000) of training. Most congregations already have people with corporate skills and many will have an actual trainer sitting in the pews. I believe that officers and leaders need the rudiments of each of these skills. These classes could probably be boiled down to a total of 8 hours of classroom and activity time, with external resources (your local church camp or conference center?) providing more depth on an as-needed. I would assume (but I’m prepared to be told that I’m wrong) that clergy would receive training in these areas in seminary.
As Christians, we are expected to be in community and harmony (overall) with each other and therefore the willingness to improve our skills for working with each other and for God should already be there. We just need to formalize the process of gaining those skills and doing our work more effectively. And then let’s use the extra time and energy (no longer wasted) for prayer, time with God, or even more good works.
What do you think?
Disclaimer: I have no relationship with Learning Tree or the American Management Association other than having taken their classes in the past. Other trainers will provide the same training of comparable value.
Retreat update
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Five Things I Dig About Jesus
(I got tagged by Quotidian Grace.)
The Rules:
(a) Those tagged will share “Five Things They Dig About Jesus”.
(b) Those tagged will tag 5 people.
(c) Those tagged will leave a link to their meme in the comments section of
this post so everyone can keep track of what’s being posted.
Here are my five:
1. Jesus’ main message was love – Love for God, Love for Each Other. This message drives everything else.
2. Jesus spent much of his time working amongst the “least of these”. I’m a big fan of the underdog (as I said here).
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4. Jesus spoke Truth to Power.
5. Jesus gave us the Happy Ending.
Now I get to tag some people.
Classical Presbyterian
Bayou Christian
The Church Geek
Pomomusings
Small World Big Church
Have a nice weekend!
Setting the record straight
I got quoted by the Layman.
For those who’ve never heard of it, the Presbyterian Layman is the newsletter of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. In my opinion, the Presbyterian Lay Committee has been one of the driving forces behind attempts by the conservative wing of the PC(USA) denomination to take over and/or split the denomination. The Lay Committee is extremely divisive – the Layman doubly so.
I was quoted in this article for my comments in this post at Decently and In Order. DAIO is a site run by 4 young PC(USA) pastors who do a semi-regular podcast. The site is set up so that users (including me) can post links to articles of interest on the web and make comments. Voting (ala Digg.com – which the site is based on) is available, but it’s the comments that are the most interesting.
I want to make a few things clear.
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Second, I support my statements regarding the Heartland Presbytery Administrative Commission. I feel strongly that an AC that has substantially all of the power of the presbytery over sessions and minister members, that has the ability to have additional targets added by a small subset of presbytery members, and that has no defined end date is a terrible idea. In essence, a group that has large amounts of power has been created under circumstances where the only way to perpetuate that power is through the finding of additional “schismatics”. This is an invitation to corruption. A better choice would be to create the AC to deal solely with the two congregations in question. Emergency presbytery meetings would be sufficient to deal with new situations.
Third, I am completely in favor of an Administrative Commission being created to exercise the powers listed over the First Presbyterian Church of Paola, KS and the Hillsdale Presbyterian Church of Hillsdale, KS. A married couple are in positions of power in each church, and they have clearly schemed together to lead these congregations out of the denomination. Their actions have shown none of the grace expected and required when a church regretfully chooses to leave the denomination.
I hope this clears things up.
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